Lost Souls in Sin City
by coffeebuddha
Summary: Growing up is never easy, but it's a little better when you have help from your friends. Pre-series Reid-centric fic.


The spelling bees, like so many things in Spencer's life, were entirely Amelia's fault. She was seven, an entire year and two months older than he was, and never treated him like some dumb kid and for that alone he loved her with a dazed, almost disbelieving devotion, so when she sat at his kitchen table, tearing into a peanut butter sandwich with the crusts cut off and enthusing about her cousin Ethan and all of his cool trophies, he perked up, because _he _could spell too. Amelia's parents were both academics and sometimes Spencer thought her definition of cool might be different from other kids', but he didn't question it because she liked to play mad scientists instead of house and was letting him teach her chess.

It didn't take much to convince his mom. The right combination of words-stimulation, scholarships, college resume-and she was reading rulebooks and harassing administrators about letting him compete, even though he was still a year too young. Diana Reid was a forced to be reckoned with, cuttingly brilliant and more than a little intimidating. Spencer never found out exactly what happened during that meeting while he sat in the office lobby and thumbed absentmindedly through an old issue of Time Magazine, but when his mom came out with a triumphant smile, a thoroughly harassed looking older woman reluctantly following her, he wasn't surprised. His mom could do absolutely anything; it was a given fact. The sky was blue, the moon moved the tides, and Diana Reid always got whatever she put her considerable mind to.

Two months later, Spencer had a first place trophy and a bloody nose courtesy of Amelia's cousin Ethan, who had a mean right hook for an eight year old.

"You cheated. I don't know how you did it, but you _did_," Ethan snarled as he waved his second place trophy in the space between them. Spencer eyed it warily from where he was sprawled on the dry, dusty ground and gingerly touched his fingertips to the blood that was running down his chin and dripping onto his good shirt. He could see Amelia standing behind Ethan, her dark brown eyes-eyes that were identical to Ethan's, Spencer absently noted-as perfectly round as her mouth, which was only partially hidden behind her hand.

Ethan shifted even closer, looming in a way that reminded Spencer of a vulture, but before he could do anything else a woman marched up and grabbed his elbow, snapping out a sharp, "Ethan Zebulon Matinsky, what on _earth_ do you think you're doing! We don't hit."

Ethan looked at her, his lips pursed tightly, eyebrows drawn together, and chin lifted defiantly, and Spencer could see her shoulders slumping a little in something like resignation as she slowly shook her head. The sun was at her back, casting her face into shadow, and for a moment Spencer was distracted by the way the sunlight lit her dark hair like a halo, then she was releasing Ethan to kneel by his side and gingerly mop at his face with a soft, well worn handkerchief while she gently felt at his nose to see if it was broken.

"Let me get a look at that, honey," she said, her voice suddenly as soft and warm as his favorite flannel pajamas, and he relaxed a little under her gentle touch despite his reservations about letting a stranger poke at his injury. His hesitance still must have been written across his face though, because she quickly added, "I'm a nurse."

Once she was closer, Spencer could see that she had the same curls as Amelia, the same strong eyebrows as Ethan, the same deep brown eyes as both of them, and a tired, faded prettiness that was all hers. Ethan stood next to her shoulder and scowled at him, but when his mom cut him a hard look, he mumbled an insincere, "Sorry."

In the end, Spencer thinks ten years later, it had all turned out okay. After determining that his nose wasn't broken and he didn't need to go to the hospital, Ms Matinsky had lectured Ethan-who spent most of the lecture staring into the middle distance and looking bored-for a solid ten minutes, smoothed things over with his mom, who showed up six minutes into the lecture, taken all of them out for ice cream, and had let Spencer touch her hair when he politely asked if he could, even though his small hand had been sticky from his half melted chocolate cone. Sure, Ethan had been an ass about Spencer always beating him for a while-he still can be, if Spencer wants to be completely honest about it-but _overall_ it was okay. Because so many things in his life are Amelia's fault, but somehow all the problems he wants to blame her for seem to evaporate like dew under the Nevada sun.

Spencer clings to that thought now like a blanket and very carefully keeps his eyes focused on the clock hanging on the opposite wall while Amelia sits in the chair next to him, happily swinging her legs and chatting away with a prostitute about the best make up removers, acting for all the world she's at a garden party and not the middle of the police station with a pair of handcuffs securing her wrist to the armrest. There's a matching set of cuffs around Spencer's wrist, the metal warmer now than it had been half an hour ago, but still seeming far too heavy and bulky for the slim circle of silver. Amelia and her new best friend have moved on to hair care-"You can't just_ brush_ curly hair! That would be a total disaster!"-by the time Spencer hears familiar footsteps coming up behind them.

He swallows a groan and squeezes his eyes closed tightly, silently praying that he's wrong. Anyone else, he silently chants. _Please_ let Amelia have called anyone else, because there's no way he's going to be able to live this one down.

"Really, you two? Trespassing on private property? Underage drinking? Littering? Where did I go wrong with them, officer?"

Shit, Spencer thinks vehemently, looking up just in time to catch Ethan batting his eyelashes coyly at the young officer who had arrested them. She flushes and keeps her eyes on him as she fumbles to undo their handcuffs.

"Oh, most kids go through a phase like this," Officer Flirty answers, giggling a little when Ethan flashes her a crooked, charming grin. Spencer rolls his eyes and shakes his wrist, which feels oddly light now, and Amelia bounces to her feet like a hyperactive jack in the box. In addition to her eyes, she has the same grin as Ethan-which is just unfair, because it gets the both of them out of more trouble on a regular basis than Spencer can even imagine getting into-and she cranks it up to its highest wattage, positively beaming at the officer. The officer smiles back at her, an indulgent 'oh, _you_' smile, and Spencer swears by the theory of relativity that neither of them are really human.

"I should get them home," Ethan says, his tone just this side of confiding and his eyebrows and voice both dropping a little. "School night and all, you know."

"Of course. They're free to go. Just be sure to come back," she says, her body angled toward Ethan's. She pauses, bites her lower lip, then hurriedly rushes on. "For the court date. They have to be back for their court date."

The officer blushes darker and twirls a lock of hair around her finger, and seriously, how can she possibly be this unprofessional and still allowed to carry a loaded weapon? She has that look in her eyes that girls always seem to get right before they ask Ethan for his number, but before she can he's nodding and dropping his arms around their shoulders-it's a little awkward and lopsided because Amelia's so much shorter than either of them and Spencer ends up nearly tripping because of the way Ethan's grip is making him tilt to the side-and steering the two of them out of the station.

"So," Ethan says slowly as Amelia ducks out from under his arm and skips toward his old El Camino. Spencer straightens up and shoves his hands in his pockets so he won't do something stupid, like give in to the urge to wrap an arm around Ethan's waist and snuggle up against his side. "You guys went out drinking without me, got yourselves arrested, and then called me up at 2am to bail your bony asses out of jail. Did I miss anything or does that about sum it up?"

"More or less," Amelia practically chirps, far too perky and bright eyed for a girl with most of the local liquor store sloshing around in her five foot nothing frame, and circles around to the passenger side door. Ethan looks down at Spencer and arches an eyebrow at him that all but screams _smooth move, genius_, before pushing him in her direction. He bounces his keys in the palm of his hand for a minute, then leans across the roof of the car and gives them what's probably the most serious face he can muster.

"You realize this makes you my bitches, right?"

Spencer sighs and rubs his fingers together, trying to rub the ink off. "So what else is new?"

"Not a damn thing," Ethan laughs as he finally unlocks the car.

Spencer shuffles from foot to foot while Ethan flops down behind the wheel and leans across the bench seat to shove their door open. It nearly hits Amelia in the side, but Spencer catches it before it can, and she shoots him a grateful smile as she slides toward the middle of the seat, where she folds her skinny legs neatly up against her chest, her arms circling them loosely and her pointy chin resting on a knee. When Spencer settles next to her, she leans into his side and Spencer sighs again, because someday he's really going to have to learn how to stay mad at her. He drapes an arm around her shoulders instead, the backs of his fingers tingling when they brush against Ethan's bare bicep on her other side. It's been a long hell of a day and Spencer lets his fingers stay there.

Ethan watches them, an eyebrow cocked mockingly and his hand hovering by the ignition. "We good to go? Everybody cozy?"

There's no malice in his voice, so Spencer ignores him, though Amelia pulls a face and sticks her tongue out at him. Ethan laughs and elbows her as he starts the car, and she retaliates by reaching for the radio as soon as it crackles to life, spinning the dial up away from the smooth jazz station Ethan prefers. Because Spencer values his life and sanity, he rests his head back against the top of the seat, closes his eyes, and tries to block out their bickering and the way the little bit of alcohol he'd had is churning uncomfortably in his stomach. He can feel a headache building behind his eyes and he breathes slowly, in and out, focusing on the stretch of his lungs and Amelia's bony warmth under his arm and Ethan's velvet heat against his fingers, and falls into a light doze to the sound of Ethan cursing fit to make a sailor proud and Amelia's off key voice singing along with Britney Spears about someone hitting her one more time.

There are strange half dreams then; odd, fleeting glimpses of his course adviser breathing fire, Ethan dressed like a slutty school girl, his mom in a full suit of armor. He's in the middle of trying to hotwire the TARDIS when something shakes his shoulder and he wakes up, snapping back to consciousness with Ethan's face _right there_, and Spencer yelps and falls backwards, sprawled across the car seat. Ethan looks down at him and everything from his raised eyebrow to the hands braced on his hips express how incredibly unimpressed he is with Spencer at this exact moment. A slow burn works its way up Spencer's neck to his cheeks as he scrambles to get out of the car, nearly tripping himself up a few different times with limbs that seem to be getting longer and more unwieldy every day.

When Spencer overbalances and nearly faceplants onto his cracked driveway, Ethan grabs him by the wrist and hauls him to his feet. Instead of letting him go immediately, Ethan keeps his hand on Spencer's wrist, his long fingers strong and warm against his skin. Spencer ducks his head and hopes that the mostly broken street light in front of his house doesn't suddenly flicker back on, because he can feel the flush in his cheeks getting hotter. Ethan leads him up to the front door like he thinks Spencer is still too drunk or sleepy to find it on his own. And it's not one of Spencer's proudest moments, but he takes advantage of that, swaying forward to rest his forehead against Ethan's shoulder.

For a minute, he silently resents the fact that Amelia's had her own key to his house for a couple of years now, because he's suddenly flashing back to the last time Ethan had taken him home during the early morning hours. Spencer had been nearly dead on his feet and mumbling that he needed to get back to the library; that particular argument had been neatly cut off by Ethan smacking a hand over his mouth and ignoring all of Spencer's indignant wriggles. Since there was no escape, Spencer had let himself be led around like a child, though his thoughts had been anything but childish when Ethan's fingers dipped into his front pocket to fish out his keys. Spencer's mind recalls the memory so crystalline clear that he can feel the phantom heat of Ethan's touch against his upper thigh, and he tries to subtly angle his hips to the side so that his reaction isn't obvious.

After several minutes of digging in her bottomless hole of a purse, which Spencer is hardly about to complain about what with the way Ethan's absently stroking his thumb over the inside of his wrist, Amelia unearths her keys and lets them in with a silent flourish. They stumble inside and head for the living room, where Amelia somehow manages to spread out to cover the entire couch and says something into the cushions about it being too late to go all the way home. The fact that she lives all of one house over is on the tip of Spencer's tongue, but he pushes it down and waves for Ethan to make himself comfortable, before toeing out of his shoes and ducking down the hallway.

There's no noise coming from his mother's room, but a thin strip of light glows under the doorway. Spencer slowly, carefully turns the knob. The door swings open silently on hinges that Spencer keeps well oiled. When he pokes his head into the room, his mother is curled up in the middle of the bed, looking impossibly small and fragile surrounded by a mess of papers, books, and the untouched sandwich Spencer had made for her about nine hours ago. He sighs and slips into the room, the pad of his socked feet quiet on the carpet. There's an old quilt tossed haphazardly on the floor, and Spencer picks it up and shakes it out, then drapes it over his mother, tucking her in with her research. He takes the sandwich-one more thing for the compost heap-and pauses uncertainly. After a long moment, he carefully rests a knee on the edge of the bed and kisses his mother's forehead. She stirs, but doesn't wake, and Spencer leaves the room as unnoticed as he'd entered it.

Ethan's in the kitchen when Spencer walks in. His eyes flicker from Spencer's face to the sandwich and he reaches to trade him a glass of water for the plate. Spencer sips the water and leans back against the kitchen counter as he watches Ethan move effortlessly through his overgrown backyard, his features cast in silver from the moonlight. It hurts how beautiful and out of reach he is, and Spencer has to close his eyes and turn away, hands braced on the dirty counter and head bowed. He's still standing like that when Ethan comes back inside and puts what he probably intends as a brotherly arm around his shoulders to give him a light squeeze. The silence stretches, but Spencer doesn't-_can't_-say anything. Because he knows what will come out of his mouth if he opens it right now, and somehow he doesn't think begging Ethan to push him back against the counter and kiss him will go over well. So he keeps his mouth shut and, after several minutes, Ethan gives his shoulders another squeeze and knocks their heads lightly together.

"Let's get you to bed, okay?"

Spencer doesn't argue, because this is the way his world works, the way it _has_ worked, for years now. Amelia barrels through life without thinking, damn the consequences. Spencer holds on to everything around him by his fingernails, trying desperately to keep it all from spinning out of control. And Ethan. Ethan fixes the things that Amelia destroys and Spencer can't quite keep together.

There are pajamas in Spencer's dresser, but Spencer ignores them in favor of just stripping out of his shirt and pants and tumbling into bed in his boxers and socks. His blankets are warm and his pillow is soft and he's already half asleep when he realizes that Ethan's following his lead and shucking his clothes. And, okay, maybe this is something that they've done before, maybe a few dozen times at least, but not for the couple of years since Ethan started college-he'd skipped one grade easily enough, then watched Spencer slipping ahead as effortlessly as hot metal through snow and worked his ass off to skip another-and Spencer's mouth is already open to suggest the couch when he remembers Amelia's camped out on it, and then it's too late because Ethan's under the covers and too close to avoid touching on the narrow mattress.

Ethan touches his shoulder and tugs on his pillow, pulling it close enough so that they can share it, his breath stirring the hair at the back of Spencer's neck, and quietly says, "Try not to kick me. I have a class in the morning."

Spencer forces himself to swallow and nod, dizzy from the heat of Ethan's body stretched out next to his back. He has a lab in less than six hours and he's going to have to figure out a way to convince the school that he could still be trusted and deserved scholarship money despite the fact that he'd gotten himself arrested, but even knowing that he should rest, he lays there so tense it hurts for hours before finally slipping into a light, uneasy sleep.

* * *

Spencer proposed to Ethan for the first time when he was eleven. That was the same year he decided to build a Tesla coil in his garage, or, as Amelia always fondly refers to it, the year he accidentally blew the garage up. It hadn't _really_ blown up. Not the entire garage, anyway, though the Tesla coil certainly had. It was a beautiful explosion, Spencer thought as he stood on the driveway and watched his makeshift workshop smolder. Very...sparky.

He clutched the papers he'd managed to save to his chest and waited for the wail of sirens to start. Something caught and flared, and Spencer idly wondered how long it would take his mom to notice the damage. He was still standing there watching when Ethan and Amelia burst out of her house and came sprinting across Mr. Gilly's lawn toward him. A few of their neighbors were standing in their doorways, but none of them made a move toward them-another side effect of having a 'crazy', 'unpredictable' mother, Spencer later decided-though a couple had phones to their ears.

"Holy crap, genius, what did you _do_?" Ethan gaped at the fire while Amelia gaped at Spencer, who stared sadly at the twisted remains of his project.

"I don't know what I did wrong," Spencer said helplessly, not protesting when Ethan took the papers out of his hands and started scanning them. "Everything was going fine and then it suddenly exploded."

Amelia said with a horrified glee, "You don't have any _eyebrows_."

Ethan, who had built a Tesla coil the summer before as part of an advanced group project at science camp, huffed a sigh at the papers and pointed at a slightly charred line of print. "Here. This isn't right."

Spencer frowned as he took back the proffered papers and scanned over the text. There, right where Ethan had pointed, was a tiny, stupid mistake from when he'd copied the instructions down. He looked at the words without really seeing them as his mental blueprint of the coil shifted and rearranged itself until it matched the new measurements, fitting where it hadn't quite before. His smile stretched so wide it hurt when he looked up at Ethan and the words were out of his mouth before he even had time to think about them.

"I want to marry you," he said with his eyebrows burned off, his clothes and face smudged with soot, and a borderline manic smile. Ethan laughed and punched his shoulder-just enough to make him rock back a bit, but not enough to really hurt, because Ethan never tried to _really_ hurt him after that first time-and turned back toward the garage like it was all a joke. Spencer could hear the faint sound of a fire truck screaming toward them, but he kept his eyes on Ethan. Just like with the coil, something was shifting and fitting together inside of him, all of it centered on the other boy.

* * *

Spencer wakes up feeling exhausted, every muscle in his body aching with it. He feels heavy, caught halfway between waking and sleep, and it takes him several moments to realize that the body wrapped around his is real and not a dream. Ethan is pressed up tight against his back, curled almost protectively around him, with a possessive hand gripping low on his hip. He shifts, barely more than a shiver, and feels the slightest brush of fingertips at the base of his cock. Spencer freezes, his body humming to life, and he's suddenly immensely aware of every place Ethan's body is touching his. A nose at the back of his neck. A knee slotted tight between his thighs. A single toe caught in the edge of his sock, pushing it halfway down his instep. And, because his life is fucking _unfair_, an obvious erection against the base of his spine.

The whimper slips out unbidden and Ethan wriggles impossibly closer, pushing Spencer's sock all the way off and hooking their ankles together, and mumbles something that might be 'shut the fuck up, I'm trying to sleep' into Spencer's bare shoulder.

Part of him wants to jump up, curl up in a corner and hide until Ethan leaves, but another part-the _wrong_ part of him-whispers that he should relax back into the embrace and just go with it. Take a chance and just _indulge _for once. Except that he'd tried that the night before and it'd gotten him nothing but arrested. His pulse is pounding, the thump of his blood loud enough to drown out the birdsong that's drifting through his half open window, but he forces his breathing to stay slow, steady, deep. A quick glance at his alarm clock tells him there's still another half hour before it'll go off, and he debates trying to slip out of Ethan's grip now or pretending to sleep until then.

Ten minutes later, he's still laying there telling himself that he'll move any moment now, just as soon as Ethan stops snuffling at the back of his neck or running his toe over his naked instep, when his bedroom door is flung open. The doorknob hits the wall with a hard crack that makes Ethan jump awake with a muffled shout and Spencer winces, because there's already a practically permanent divot in his wall that he's probably never going to be able to fix. Ethan props his chin on Spencer's temple, which is decidedly unsexy and kind of hurts a little bit. Amelia takes in the scene with one quick glance and arches an unfairly judgmental eyebrow at Spencer, her expression saying 'I love you, but you're an idiot and I will kick you in the _face_ if you don't stop,' as loudly as if she'd spoken the words out loud.

She braces her hands on her practically nonexistant hips and says, "Get your asses out of bed, bitches, I made frittatas," like it's some kind of important, official political edict, then flounces away before Spencer can even blink.

Spencer doesn't think they even have any more _bread_, much less eggs or tomatoes or asparagus or any of the other things Amelia can magic into real food, and that means she's obviously been up long enough to run back to her own house and grab everything she needed in _addition_ to cooking. He's friends with a freak of nature, Spencer decides, not for the first time. There's no way anyone should be physically capable of drinking enough to put a Russian lumberjack under a table and wake up less than a handful of hours later as refreshed as if they just spent a week at the spa. He loses his train of thought then, because Ethan's rolling away and taking all of his delicious warmth with him.

"You heard the lady," Ethan says as he throws a probably clean shirt at Spencer's head, and Spencer tries not to focus on how his voice is low and rough from sleep or that he's ignoring the shirt he'd been wearing the night before in favor of stealing one of Spencer's-a t-shirt from a Star Trek con they'd gone to the summer before that's too small and too tight and flaunts a narrow strip of smooth, pale skin every time Ethan moves. Instead, Spencer wriggles into his clothes as quickly as he can while still partially under his covers, because he's _unfairly_ hard and Ethan looking at him like he's grown a second head is better than him noticing that little fact right now.

They can hear the voices in the kitchen from the hallway, happy and bright and laughing, and the constant tightness in Spencer's shoulders eases a little when he walks in and sees his mom perched on a stool at the counter, forking up her breakfast and speculating with Amelia about whether The Backstreet Boy's lyrics will be considered valid poetry in a hundred years or not.

It's a good day, for now at least, and he kisses his mom's cheek and takes a plate from Amelia-who gives him a Look and makes an overly casual comment about how thankful she is for the two of them helping her with her science homework the night before, which there's no way his mom is buying that, even if she doesn't say anything-and smiles and laughs while Ethan charms his mom with questions about _The Faerie Queene_.

* * *

The most awkward incident in Spencer's already remarkably awkward life happened when he was fifteen. He was sitting on Amelia's bedroom floor, his back up against the foot of her bed, and striking through an entire paragraph in her English paper about _The Prince and the Pauper_, because, no, Wishbone really _didn't_ qualify as a source. Amelia had somehow managed to fold her body into an impossible position that made Spencer wince every time he glanced over at where she was sitting in front of her vanity, a tube of lipstick in each hand and her Mountains Will Crumble And All The Puppies Ever Will Get Kicked If I Get This Wrong look on her face. The left side of her mouth was light pink, the right deep red. Spencer ignored her. The paper was due the next day and he'd promised her dad that he'd do everything he could, short of actually writing the thing himself, to keep her from failing the class and being held back a grade. Again.

"What do you think," Amelia asked, swiveling around to face Spencer. She covered one side of her mouth with her fingers, then the other. "Sugar Baby Pink or Crack Whore Red?"

"I think I'm trying to keep you from flunking out of high school and you should be working on your geometry homework. Do you think you could," Spencer paused, the rest of his sentence catching on his lips as he frowned. "Someone actually thought it would be good marketing to name a lipstick 'Crack Whore Red'?"

Amelia snorted at the incredulous look on his face, slid bonelessly off her chair onto the floor, and squirmed over to rest her head on his knee. "Nah, not really. It's actually 'Vampy Vixen', but 'Crack Whore Red' has a pretty good ring to it, don't you think?"

"You're a creative genius," Spencer said dryly.

He jiggled his leg in an attempt to dislodge Amelia's head and she bit at his thigh and smeared her lipstick all over his khakis. Spencer yelped and tried to roll out of her reach, smacking at her futilely with her term paper, but Amelia just snaked her wiry arms around his waist and clung to him. When he kicked out at her stomach-gently, because he was a _gentleman_, damn it-she dug her nails in and headbutted his chest. It wasn't even close to a fair fight, because he was a hell of a lot bigger, even if he_ was_ only about as big around as a toothpick, but Amelia had done everything from boxing to wrestling to Bruce Lee inspired kung fu since she was old enough to throw a punch-'On the off chance that the Doctor is real, I want to be _ready_ if he ever needs a companion, Spencer. Shut _up_, I'm _serious_.'-so after a few minutes of grappling, she ended up straddling his back with his arm twisted uncomfortably behind him.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Spencer grumbled into the carpet. He could see the dust bunnies under her bed and didn't even want to think about how long it had been since she'd vacuumed, much less shampooed her floor. "How many times did your parents _drop you_ on your _head_ as a child?"

"I think we should have sex," she announced, like that _wasn't_ a freaking insane idea, and Spencer sputtered and tried to turn over, which only succeeded in wrenching his arm in its socket. "Don't squirm," she said as she bounced on top of him. "You'll just end up hurting yourself if you do."

"If you're so worried about me hurting myself, maybe you shouldn't be twisting my arm in a way that _no arm is ever meant to bend_," Spencer said with what he thought was a perfectly acceptable amount of disapproval and scorn. He could _hear_ Amelia roll her eyes.

"Oh, please, don't even. I could bend my arm like this all day without any trouble."

"You're double jointed."

"All the more reason why you should sleep with me," Amelia said, like that was beyond obvious and she was contemplating finding an actual piece of wood and writing 'clue-by-four' on it just so she could whack him with it, but she released his arm and let him roll over. Spencer glared up at her and she flopped down on him, arms folded across his chest and chin propped up on her arms. "Please?"

A scathing retort hovered right on the tip of his tongue, but something in Amelia's expression made him hesitate. She was _serious_, he realized. She was honest to god _serious_, and Spencer gaped up at her, because his mouth was already open to ask her what the hell she was thinking, except he couldn't draw enough air to make anything other than a strangled, unintelligible noise.

"Deep breaths, sugar dumpling," said Amelia. She made a soft, sympathetic sound in the back of her throat and stretched out her legs, draping them over his and hooking her feet around his calves. "I'm not going to encroach on your pristine virtue if you don't want me to. I'm not some pushy jock on prom night, so you can stop clutching your dime store pearls already."

There were so many things to say to that, but when Spencer finally found his voice again, what came out was, "I would never wear dime store pearls."

Amelia laughed and slipped off of him to settle against his side, her head on his shoulder and a leg tossed familiarly over his hips. "Of course you wouldn't; you're way too much of a classy lady for that. It would be the heirloom necklace that your great grandmother wore to her wedding or nothing at all."

"Why am I friends with you?" Spencer asked the plastic stars scattered across the ceiling. Amelia stretched to smack a messy kiss on his cheek and said, "Because I feed you, can list every captain of the Enterprise in chronological order, can quote pretty much all of _A New Hope_ from memory, and I made you a Doctor Who scarf for your birthday," which Spencer couldn't exactly refute, since it was all true. He let his head fall to the side so that his face was pressed against her hair, but she wasn't finished.

"Because I think you're brilliant and you think I'm fun and we both think the whole world's pretty much going to shit, but it's okay because we have each other." She looked at him, brown eyes huge and earnest, and curled her fingers in the front of his shirt. "I want to do this, Spencer, and I'm _going_ to no matter what, but I'd really like for my first time to be with someone I love and trust, who'll respect me even if it's absolutely horrible and who won't suddenly decide I don't exist afterward."

"Amelia," Spencer said, kind of lost and broken, because this wasn't them, wasn't how they were. His distress was as easy to read on his face at fifteen as it was at six and Amelia was already shaking her head, her eyes somehow widening even more.

"I'm not saying I want this to be a, a _thing_," she said, as uncertain as he'd ever seen her. "I'm not asking for a relationship or anything here. I just, like I said, I just want someone who actually gives a shit. Honestly, that's either you or Ethan, and he's so completely not an option that it's not even funny, you know?"

And the worst part was that Spencer did know.

As far as first kisses went, Spencer though theirs probably rated about a three out of ten, though it was bad science since he didn't have anything to compare it to. The slide of Amelia's lips against his wasn't _bad_, per se, but they couldn't quite manage to get their noses in line for the first several seconds, and then it was just sort of happening. No spark, no thrill, just warm, damp pressure. Amelia's lips tasted like wax from the cheap lipstick that was still smudged on them and after a few fumbling kisses that left them both frowning, they didn't try that again. The groping went a little better, because there was definitely something to be said about having a hand on his penis that wasn't his, even if it did seem a little hesitant. And even if Amelia stripping off her clothes as quickly and perfunctory as she'd shuck the husk off a cob of corn didn't exactly make his blood boil, it was fascinating to find out how very smooth and soft she was underneath in spite of her skinny sharpness that always reminded him of one of her paring knives. The way the flesh at her waist yielded under the press of his fingers, how her small breasts molded easily to the shape of his hands, dusky pink nipples pebble hard against his palms, the firmer press of her thighs against his sides.

There were condoms in the top drawer of Amelia's bedside table, the box unopened and tangled up in a plastic Walmart bag, and Amelia tried to get one on him, grumbling under her breath about how this was _nothing_ like a banana and her sex ed teacher was _stupid_, and it took longer than it should have and both of their hands to smooth the condom the rest of the way on. She rolled her eyes at Spencer and the corner of her mouth quirked up in an almost smile, and the nervous tension that had been building between them snapped, like a rubber band stretched too tight, and they laughed, naked and clutching at each other until the bed shook with it.

They were still laughing, stuttering little chuckles, when Amelia gripped at his shoulders and pulled at him, hooking a leg up around his waist, and then he was _in _and it was tight and hot and a little bit insane. Amelia tensed underneath him, her expression taut and uncomfortable. Spencer forced himself to stay still, pressed his forehead against hers, and for several long moments they just breathed. Finally, Amelia turned her head slightly to the side and exhaled long and slow against Spencer's cheek, then gave a tiny nod.

It didn't last long. It was too much, too bright and sharp around the edges. Spencer came almost embarrassingly fast and Amelia didn't come at all, though she'd let out a few pleased gasps toward the end. Afterward, once Spencer had gotten rid of the condom and Amelia had pulled a sheet up over them, they laid curled together, their skin tacky and sticking together with drying sweat, and Amelia pressed the flat of her hand over Spencer's heart and said, "That was..."

"Yes," Spencer said faintly. He wondered how long he would have to lay here and pretend to be comfortable before he could get up. Movies and books were good for gleaning a lot of the social mores that had a tendency to slip past him, but he'd never seen or read anything that had covered the afterglow period.

"I always thought it'd be more," Amelia paused and waved a hand in the air that could have meant anything from 'bouncy' to 'interesting' to 'if you give me a flashlight, I could make this look like a duck'. She bit her lips together and blew out a breath through her nose, tickling Spencer's neck a little. "I guess I just always thought it would be _more_."

Spencer hummed thoughtfully and gave a little half shrug. "I think it would probably have been better if we were actually attracted to each other," he hazarded.

"You think?"

"It would stand to reason," Spencer said absently as he eyed the ceiling fan. It was making some disconcerting creaking noises as it rotated and he didn't want to be underneath it if it fell.

"Hey, Spencer?" Amelia propped herself up on her elbow, her loose hair framing her face like a tangle of flaming question marks. Spencer caught an errant curl on his finger and gave it a light tug that made her wrinkle her nose at him.

"Hmm?"

"Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but I think I like girls."

Spencer stared up at the ceiling and turned that over in his head. The words were casual enough, but Amelia's body was stiff with tension against his side. He stroked his fingers lightly over the slight curve of her hip the way he'd seen people sooth a startled dog and pulled her back down against him as he turned to look at her. His eyes caught on hers, on the deep brown that had pushed him over the edge of indecision and made him go along with her crazy idea, and it was so easy to picture them in a different, longer, more masculine face.

"Okay," he finally said. Amelia smiled hesitantly and he brushed a kiss against her forehead. "It's okay."

"Really?"

"Yes." He cleared his throat, glanced at the childish stars tacked to the ceiling, over at the makeup scattered messily across the top of the vanity, up at the ominous ceiling fan, across the room at the lacy curtains on the window, then back down at Amelia. "I think I like Ethan."

The silence hung heavy in the air, then shattered when Amelia laughed, a hard, brittle laugh that kind of hurt to hear. She pressed more closely against his side and shook her head against his shoulder. She was smiling when she finally looked up at him again, but it was flat and sad and there was nothing humorous about it. She shook her head again slowly and smoothed his hair back off of his forehead. "God, we're just all kinds of fucked, aren't we?"

* * *

Spencer moves into the spare bedroom of Ethan's apartment three weeks after his eighteenth birthday. Amelia-who's been at culinary school in New Orleans for the past couple of months-weaves a massive, obviously fictitious epic tale of woe that would have made the Greeks proud until her teachers throw their hands in the air and tell her she has a week, and jumps on the first red eye flight out. There's an embarrassing moment at the airport when Amelia decides to pretend like they're in a movie and tries to run into Spencer and Ethan's arms for a slow motion hug and neither of them have _any idea_what she's doing, so they just look at each other and manage to silently agree that she's finally lost it using only their eyebrows. She berates them the entire ride back to Spencer's house, snug between them on the bench seat of Ethan's El Camino.

The next morning, Ethan and Spencer pretend to help Amelia bake cookies for the open house that's scheduled for that afternoon, sneaking dough from the bowl until the backs of their hands are red from how many times she's smacked them with the wooden mixing spoon.

It's a seller's market and Spencer gets an offer from a couple who eat half of Amelia's cookies and are willing to pay the asking price if they can have the recipe.

She rolls her eyes and tells him that he owes her, like, ten ponies, but dutifully scratches out the recipe in barely legible writing and staples it to the contract.

They spend the next few days inhaling more dust than air, eating obscene amounts of takeout because Amelia wants 'a fucking break from cooking, so you two can quit your bitching and heaven help you if you forget the pineapple on my pizza', and packing an even more obscene amount of books to go into temporary storage. Ethan tells Spencer he looks like he's being forced to put Old Yeller down when he reluctantly agrees that he can live without having a complete classics collection at his fingertips, especially since Ethan's place is right down the street from the library, but it's a _very exceptionally _reluctant agreement.

Spencer finally works up the nerve to go into his mom's room on the fourth day. For a long time he just stands there, taking in every tiny, insignificant detail and letting every wonderful, horrible memory wash over him. He doesn't realize he's crying until Amelia comes up next to him and wraps him in a tight hug, and then he's shuddering and gasping sobs that sound like they're being punched out of him. Ethan sticks his head in the door just long enough to realize what's going on, then disappears. The two of them somehow end up on the floor, Spencer curled into a sick, miserable ball and Amelia curved around him like a protective shield as she strokes his hair and murmurs over and over that he did the right thing and never once tries to say that it's all going to be okay.

When Ethan gets back, he's carrying a couple bottles of whiskey and a ziploc bag full of the leftover cookies. The kitchen's already completely packed up, so they take turns swigging directly from the bottle, chomping on snickerdoodles between gulps. Once they've drunk enough that Spencer can't quite remember the last row of the periodic table, Ethan acts downright belligerent until they agree to let him put on a Stravinsky CD that's full of atonal 12-tone music that makes Spencer and Amelia raise their eyebrows at each other every time he isn't looking, and even Amelia's swaying a little every time she bends over, the three of them pack up Diana's room together.

* * *

**Thank you for reading! Feedback is always appreciated.**

Disclaimer: Amelia and other various OCs belong to me. Everything else I have no claim on.


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